The Random Thread of Random Randomness

Sorry to interrupt, but I wasn’t sure where to put this, as it is of great, life changing importance...

(I found this recently by pure chance^)

Ever since I discovered this place, in every conversation, every mention of your name, it has been "Scah-lanex". I'm sorry. But my father raised me this way and I have been conditioned to accept no other pronunciation. Fortunately for you, you'll never hear me say it with my whack Australian accent, @Scalenex , but I'm sure this discovery will keep me awake tonight...

 

Spoiler: Endgame

 

I’ve just been to see Knives Out by Rian Johnson, and I know a lot of you dislike him for The Last Jedi, but this was an absolutely fantastic movie and this time audiences are backing me up - I have honestly yet to see a proper bad review of this from anyone. The cast were great and it played with its premise really well. I get that some of you might be put off by the association with The Last Jedi, but I would honestly recommend this still as does pretty much every review I’ve managed to find. If nothing else, it could make an interesting talking point because having watched this, I think that some of your hate for The Last Jedi might be being misattributed to Rian Johnson when it possibly should go more to Disney instead

 

Surprise surprise but I disagree with several of his points. First off I think the whole “Bond is irrelevant” thing has nothing to do with “wokeness” or anything - it’s just a standard movie plot concept. “The old hero has to go back to to his job and finds everything has supposedly become better and left him behind” is something that has been done countless times, and at the end it turns out the old guy learns a bit from the new ones and they in turn learn that he isn’t quite so irrelevant and still has stuff to teach. There’s a perfectly valid argument for that being a tired and overdone trope and to criticise the writing in that sense is completely reasonable, but to blame “wokeness” for it is silly and to assume the eventual message of the film is “Bond is irrelevant” even more so.

I feel fairly similarly about his point with Bond’s replacement as well. There are at least obvious degrees of feminism in that aspect, which I think is justified given that in most of the other Bond films women are generally just presented as expendable, interchangeable and only really there for eye candy. There might be an argument for a bit of that in films, but I think the sheer extent of the “Bond Girl” trope means that the problematic parts of it should really be addressed. However, the part is disagree with is the idea that the film is trying to show she is better than him. It’s another standard movie convention. “Old Guy comes in and is partnered with new one. New one bad mouths them a bit, and does a couple of things that suggests they are possibly better. New one gets into trouble, old one saves them. Both realise they each have something to teach one another and win the day as equals”. You could argue it’s been done to death, and I find it hard to believe that the author couldn’t see that plot coming a mile off. My concern is that (based on the trailer), they have the new character behave like such an arsehole that either the comeuppance won’t feel enough, or it will be so excessive that it will end up being counterproductive and the moral ends up being “stupid feminist, leave it to the old sexist guy”. If they didn’t play up her arseholeishness as much, it would be far easier to present them as equals without making either of them seem bad, and end with the perfectly healthy moral that women can be more than just eye candy from the new agent (which would be more of the franchise acknowledging that rather than actually preaching it to Bond or the audience; he himself I don’t think has actually been depicted as particularly sexist), and that just became something is old doesn’t mean it’s obsolete from Bond himself. As it is though, although I’m pretty sure that will be the intended morals, whether they actually pull it off is a different matter.

However, possibly my biggest gripe with him is the fact he tries to make an entire point about Bond supposedly not responding to some of the new agent’s taunts. It’s a trailer for goodness sake! They clearly aren’t going to show the exact way every scene plays out - absolutely no part of it suggests there isn’t a comeback coming. Even if there isn’t, it is perfectly possible for Bond to later shut her down with his skills, and besides, not including his witty responses gives the audience the whole “*gasp* she called him obsolete! What’s he going to do about that!? I must watch the film to find out!”. If this was a review of the entire film he could have more of a point, but as it is it’s a bit silly.

Nice of him to include plenty of examples . I agree that the one he posted is an absolutely ridiculous take, and there might well be others that are similar, but given he only uses only one example while talking about it as if it is widespread does lead me to cast a bit of doubt as to whether that is the true reaction of that group instead of just a few nutters. I would believe him far more if he gave a couple more examples, and his video would suggest there is an abundance, so the fact he fails to do so does cast a certain degree of doubt on the validity of his point for me